A systematic review 1 including 4 high-quality studies was abstracted in DARE. Likelihood ratios were calculated for the presence or absence of individual clinical findings.
Accuracy of clinical history: prevalence of pneumonia ranged from 2.6% to 38.3%. No single item in the clinical history raised the odds of pneumonia high enough to confirm a diagnosis without a chest radiograph.
Accuracy of physical examination: likelihood ratios for the presence of any individual vital sign abnormality ranged from 2 to 4, and varying the cut off point for the abnormalities did not have a substantial impact on the LRs. The LRs for the absence of any vital sign abnormality (LR-) was 0.5 to 0.8.
Primary/Secondary Keywords